The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Monday agreed to deposit Rs 600 crore in the escrow account of the Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) within two days.
As a bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait was hearing the DAEMPL's execution petition seeking enforcement of an arbitration award of Rs 6,208 crore in favour of the Reliance Infrastructure subsidiary, senior advocate Parag Tripathi, appearing for the DMRC, reiterated the earlier argument that around Rs 6,000 crore is lying in various accounts of the DMRC, but is meant for various metro rail projects in the national capital as well as projects in Patna and Maharashtra.
However, the court asked the DMRC to deposit the money within two days.
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In the earlier hearing, Tripathi had submitted that the DMRC has already paid Rs 1,000 crore and only about Rs 3,305 crore is remaining now.
The DAMEPL had recently filed a fresh application requesting the High Court to direct the DMRC to deposit Rs 6,208 crore available in its accounts into the project escrow account without any delay as it rejected any out-of-court negotiations or assignment of debt.
The DAMEPL says that it wants the execution of arbitral award at the earliest and is not agreeable to any alternate proposal from DMRC. It had also maintained the same position in the Supreme Court, in the hearing on January 24.
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The Supreme Court, in its January 24 order, had stated: "The parties are directed to appear before the High Court on January 31, 2022 and seek for advancing the date of hearing. We request the High Court to take up the matter at the earliest and dispose of the application without any further delay, as consequences of the pendency of the said application are detrimental to the interest of the petitioner as well as respondent."
Pursuant to this, the DAMEPL's fresh application requested the Delhi High Court to fix an early date in the first week of February for the final hearing and disposal of the execution petition.
